Thursday, March 22, 2012

Through The Eyes Of A 5 Year Old


Don’t you wish we all still see the world as a 5 year old? With innocence and truth? However, as we grow older and progress in life, life lessons, experiences, realizations, and challenges complicate our view of the world. We become insecure, spiteful, distrustful, tired, irritated, stressed, and indifferent. All of these negativity affect how we act, what we know, and what we do in work, relationships, families, and life.

However, I’m here to show you why it is important to go back to the basics. Why we need to deconstruct our view of the world to the simplest forms. Simplicity, after all, is beautiful and sometimes in our convoluted view of the world we sometimes forget our fundamentals.

Our fundamentals. Where did we learn those? High School? No, let’s go back further? Elementary? No Let’s go back further. Kindergarten!

Yes, Kindergarten. Kindergarten is where we learned our basic survival tools. Do you remember them? Of course not! Why? Because work, broken hearts, distrust, insecurity has clouded our view of how we should be living.

One of my favorite authors, Robert Fulgham, wrote a book entitled “All I Really Needed to Know, I learned in Kindergarten.” In this book he argues wisdom is not found written in your graduate school diploma or at the top of the corporate ladder but in kindergarten.

Some of the basic rules are:

1.     Share Everything

A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin, 5, and Ryan, 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. "If Jesus were sitting here, He would say, 'Let my brother have the first pancake. I can wait.'" Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, "Ryan, you be Jesus.

Now by sharing everything, I do not mean sharing girlfriends, sharing wives, or sharing your underwear. I mean sharing within the context of sharing your wealth by donating, sharing your food to the hungry, and sharing your knowledge.

2.     Don’t hit people

A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five- and six-year-olds. After explaining the commandment to "honor thy father and thy mother," she asked "Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?" Without missing a beat one little boy answered, "Thou shall not kill."

Imagine a world where people didn’t hit each other? There would be world peace.

3.     Don’t Lie, Tell the Truth

TEACHER: Clyde, your composition on "My Dog" is exactly the same as your brother's. Did you copy his?
CLYDE: No, teacher, it's the same dog.

4.     Clean up your own mess

If toddlers and can clean up their own mess and put things away nicely why can’t political leaders do the same too?

5.     Don’t take things that aren’t yours

The age old rule, imagine if corporate CEOs followed this rule, America and the rest of the world would not be in a recession.

6.     Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.

“Sorry” can bring ethnic clashes to an end, can bring down hatred and prejudice, can bring forth peace building and peace making.

7.     Wash your hands before you eat.

Swine Flu, Bird Flu, West Nile Virus, H1N1, how many different strains of illnesses exist in the world? Too many to count. If everyone made an effort to wash their hands, carry some antibacterial soap in their bags, and keep a tissue nearby, the world would not be hit by major illnesses and sickness.

8.     When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

In kindergarten, we all had a buddy system. Whenever we would go out of school grounds the rule was, you had to hold your buddy’s hands. I think the same applies in real life; you should always have a buddy to hold hands with when you go out in the world. It can be a scary place and sometimes you need that extra safety to make sure you won’t get hurt.

9.     Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.

A father was at the beach with his children when his four-year-old son ran up to him, grabbed his hand, and led him to the shore, where a seagull lay dead in the sand. "Daddy, what happened to him?" the son asked. "He died and went to Heaven," the dad replied. The boy thought a moment and then said, "Did God throw him back down?"

Death is a part of life and we all have to come to a realization that it will strike us at one point or another. So we should always live life to the fullest.

So put away what you “think” you know about the world and live by the basic fundamental rules you were taught as a kid: how to love, basic sanitation, and equality.

We all live very sophisticated and complicated lives: money problems, relationship issues, lack of appreciation, restlessness and our experiences have hardened us to live a certain way and to believe in certain things. Take these fundamentals and apply it to your life. 

Remember, no matter how old you are - when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

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